Everyone does get those.
The beef is… Complicated.
Comment on Tens of thousands march in New Zealand Maori rights protest
ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Why do they get special rights? Shouldn’t every citizen be entitled to healthcare, welfare and social support?
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 2 months ago
Burghler@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
They are entitled already lol. It’s about equity, balancing the care.
thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz 2 months ago
Everyone does have those rights.
Basically, back in the day, when the Europeans arrived in New Zealand and wanted to set up shop, they signed a treaty with the Māori that the Europeans would govern the Europeans and the Māori would govern the Māori. This is called co-governance. At this time, Māori vastly outnumbered the colonists.
The Europeans promptly ignored the treaty and became so large in numbers that they formed the government. There is a Māori section of government that is focused on Māori issues. This bill would essentially get rid of that and let the European-formed government decide what is best for Māori.
It’s a slap in the face to say “hey, you can govern yourselves. Oh wait now we outnumber you, you shouldn’t be allowed to speak your language and also you have to follow our laws. Oh also you’re not allowed to govern your own people anymore, you have to follow our colonial way of doing things. K thx”
The “special rights” that David Seymour is talking about is basically anything specifically laid out to help Māori, so a form of affirmative action. I understand the initial distaste towards race-based solutions to problems, but it’s the only way to fix problems that were caused by race-based policies in the first place. Colour-blind equality won’t fix issues caused by systemic racism.
This is my current understanding at least. I’m a Kiwi and I attended this hīkoi (march).
ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Makes sense historically, but once the Europeans have children with the Maori, which government are they supposed to fall under?
thatsTheCatch@lemmy.nz 2 months ago
Good question. Anyone who is part or all Māori can choose whether they vote for the Māori electorate or the general electorate. As for services, I don’t know. If I had to guess, you’d have to be a member of an iwi (tribe) or at least be part Māori. But there are services for everyone; it’d be Māori-based services that would be aimed at Māori. They have different cultural values and methods, so it’s more the way the services are provided rather than the services themselves.
For example, during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, there was some discussion about Māori wanting to have their whole whānau (family) vaccinated at the same time because it’s seen as a collective measure and followed cultural Māori family values. At the time, they were being rolled by age, so some people in a family could get it while others couldn’t. There are valid discussions to be had for both methods.
ryannathans@aussie.zone 2 months ago
Right, it’s not hard to imagine it being divisive and controversial with some people being able to choose and switch between which laws they’re governed by